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Strange Freight
Strange Freight is a short story which first appeared in Wings magazine Vol. 1 No. 3. It was later gathered and published, with other Johns short stories as part of The Raid in 1935. The story is considered one of Johns' adult series and does not feature any of his recurrent characters. Synopsis The narrator meets his old friend, Bill Davenish, who tells him about a stroke of good fortune he had while working as an impoverished charter pilot. Plot (may contain spoilers - click on expand to read) The unnamed narrator meets his friend Bill Davenish at a club. Bill tells him about what has happened to him over the last three months. Bill had started up his private air charter business but this had not been going well. Three months ago, he was almost out of money. He was unable to afford the renewal of the Certificate of Airworthiness for his Desoutter and knew that he would soon lose his plane. Getting a brainwave, he decided to spend his last money advertising in The Times. He didn't expect any response but the day after, a man named Castleton came to see him, wanting to start off immediately for Central Africa in a hurry. Davenish was reluctant to bypass all the regulations, paperwork and customs formalities but Castleton offered twenty-five pounds a day and the charter could take a month or more. The money was too good to ignore so Bill went along. They took off and journeyed through France and then North Africa to a destination a little north of Lake Chad. Castleton tells Bill that his father had been an ivory poacher and had amassed a cache of elephant tusks. The old man had been negotiating with a Portuguese ivory dealer to dispose of it but had then caught pneumonia and died. Now Castleton had news from the Portuguese dealer that one of the natives who worked for his father had been arrested by the authorities and was being coerced to reveal the location of the ivory. There was therefore no time to lose. Castleton and Bill flew to a spot indicated by Castleton's map and proceeded to use the plane to move the ivory a bit at a time to another hiding place a few miles away. This took a few days and soon there was only just enough fuel left in the aircraft to make it back to civilization. Bill wanted to go off, but there was one last load of ivory to carry. Castleton offered him another two hundred pounds to move the last load. Bill calculated that he had already much more money than needed to compensate for the loss of the aircraft and so he agreed. After moving the last load, Bill was on the way back to the original location when th fuel ran out. He made a forced landing but crashed. Moving on by foot, he instinctively looked back and saw Castleton behind him about to shoot him with a pistol. Bill dived down and avoided the shots. He picked up a large rock and hurled it at Castleton, striking him on the temple and killing him. Probably marooned, Bill was surprised to hear the sound of an aircraft engine the next day. The aircraft, a Puss Moth, landed near him and out stepped a pretty girl who was the pilot, accompanied by a government official. It turned out that the ivory belonged to the girl's father, who was the ivory poacher. Castleton was a clerk at the law firm handling her father's will. Going through the papers Castleton had found the map of cache which his father had left for her and he decided to abscond and get to the ivory first. When Castleton's treachery was discovered, the girl, a qualified pilot, decided to fly out quickly on his trail. The ivory was subsequently disposed off, with the proceeds divided between the government and the girl. Bill flew back to England with the girl but they delayed for almost a month in the south of France. It was, Bill explained, not because of customs difficulties. The south of France just seemed like a better place for a honeymoon! Characters *The narrator - unnamed. Davenish says the narrator writes fiction for a living. Perhaps the narrator was Johns? *Bill Davenish *Castleton *Standish *Mrs Davenish - she is not actually named in the story. Aircraft *Desoutter *de Havilland Puss Moth Places Visited *Lympne *Lyons *Bidon Five *Gao *Lake Chad *The Riviera Mentioned *Dar es Salaam Research Notes References Category:Other short stories Category:Adult short stories